Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper is David P. Williams’s fifth Stumper in the last five months. It’s another excellent puzzle, with tiny answers made tricky (e.g., 22-A, three letters, “Forum crowd”) and surprising long answers sprinkled generously throughout.
Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:
1-D, four letters, “Operatic soprano from Charleston.” Yep, knew it.
7-D, four letters, “Inedible waffle.” Truly misdirective. I thought first of foam cushioning.
8-D, three letters, “Limits of navigation.” Another tiny answer made tricky.
10-D, ten letters, “Emulating peacock feathers.” I thank Marianne Moore for embedding the idea in my head.
11-D, five letters, “C student at work.” Surprising, at least to me, to see something like this in a Stumper.
14-A, four letters, “All of Vatican City.” Another tiny, &c.
23-D, eleven letters, “Erstwhile patent medicine.” Ha.
24-A, thirteen letters, “Quality time and physical touch, per Psychology Today.” Whatever you say.
26-D, ten letters, “Gen Z-created atmospheric gauges.” See 11-D.
40-A, thirteen letters, “Defendant in double jeopardy.” I was inordinately happy to figure out this answer.
48-A, four letters, “Anagram of TIMBERLAKE minus TAKE MR.” I got it but had to look it up to understand. Overly weird.
49-A, four letters, “Keel over.” Nice one.
57-A, three letters, “Circles kept in squares.” Clever.
My favorite in this puzzle: 16-A, ten letters, “Seasonal flier.”
No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.
comments: 3
TRE. (Three’s a crowd.) BESS. IMAY. ENS. (NavigationN.)
IRIDESCENT. (“It’s fire in the dove-neck’s // iridescence”: “The Mind Is an Enchanting Thing”.)
CODER. OMNI. QUACKREMEDY. LOVELANGUAGES. VIBECHECKS.
COUNTERFEITER. BIEL. (Jessica Biel.) LEEK. LPS. SPIRALPASS.
This was the toughest Stumper for me in months :( What was surprising about the CODER entry?
I didn't expect to see anything that computer-centric.
I agree — it was hard, and I didn’t expect to finish.
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